U.S. top prescribed drugs based on sales 2021

Humira was the top medicine in the United States based on sales in 2021, generating 17.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenue. The branded drug – used to treat, for example, arthritis – has topped revenue rankings for a number of years and made around 7.5 billion U.S. dollars more than second ranked Keytruda.

AbbVie in healthy position thanks to sales of top products

Spending on Humira in the United States more than doubled between 2014 and 2018. The biopharmaceutical company responsible for the production of the drug, AbbVie, generated global revenues of around 56 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. Humira, Imbruvica, and Skyrizi were AbbVie’s top three products based on sales in that year, combining for more than half of the company’s total revenue – Humira’s worldwide revenue alone accounted for more than a third.

How much money is spent on medicines in the United States?

In the United States, total spending on medicines reached a record 574 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, with sales of branded drugs accounting for around 84 percent of the market. Drugs can be categorized in several ways, but a common method is to group them by what they are used to treat. Around 74 billion U.S. dollars were spent on antidiabetics in the United States in 2020, making it the second ranked therapeutic category based on sales.